The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-07-06
HOusekeepers and HOmekeepers.

No one will deny that these terms
(the latter is perhaps one of my own
coining) are not synonymous. The best
housekeepers very often fail to make
home for their families. {" | never had
much of home," once heard gen
tleman remark whose mother had been
most notable housewife; " everything
was too clean. A boy who is in con-
slant terror, as | was from my earliest
years, of forgetting to wipe his feet, or
of making finger-prints on the paint,
cannot be said to have had boy-life.
used to think that my mother loved her
spotless carpets and windows better
than she did me-" | am sure there are
many children who could tell a like
story. | know just how hard it is when
there is everything to be done and only
one pair of hands to do it. l have kept
house in the country and in the city,
with and without servants, and / know
all that can be said on the subject of
work that it is impossible to neglect
without making double trouble for some
future day. There are, however, GER
tain things that can be left undone
without detriment to the health and
happiness of any of the family. There
are also things that can be sighted. A
word to the wise is sufficient. l have
heard mothers declare that they never
found time to read to their little ones.
and to tell them a story would have
seemed frightful waste of time, and
have looked at the rufles on the pima
fores and skirts of those little ones and
reflected that the ironing alone, to say
nothing of the making, of these be-
rufiled garments would take more time
than the reading or telling of many
stories. | am by no means a model
housekeeper, but my children love their
home, and although the paint is some
times grimy and the windows dingy, my
boys, who are all wel-grown lads, de-
clare that they find no place so pleas
ant. do not deny that it is a cross to
woman to look at undone work, but
like most crosses, the longer and more
cheerfully you carry it the lighter it
grows. Let the making of your home
be your first work, the care of your
house the second, and your husband
and little ones will be the happier.
When you find that you are overworking
yourself, use your ingenuity in discov-
ering how many things can be left I'M
done. If | were man l would sooner
put up with considerable good, honest
dirt than with the signs and groans of
a physically exhausted woman, for the
women who work themselves "to
DEATH are seldom such heroines as
not to tell of it. There is good deal of
philosophy in the old doggerel
/ There's too much labor goes to a bonnet
~ There's too much ironing goes to shirt,
There's nothing that's constant but worry and dirt
| Perhaps | didn't look at it in the right
light, but many time | have said to
myself, " Since there's too much iron
ing goes to shirt will see if | can
not make less do, and have polished
wristbands, collar and bosom as nicely
as my skill in laundry work would allow
and given the plain parts hasty rub thai
would have done credit to Chinese
laundryman and was strongly sugges
tive of rough dry" Even that small
saving of time was an object, however
when | had six to iron, and consoled
myself by rejecting that my husband
was the most short-sighted and absent
minded of men. | also abolished
feather-beds. They are unhealthy tC
lie on, and woman who does her owr
housework has plenty of exercise with
out beating and punching and turning
thirty or forty pounds of feathers every
day 1t is much easier to make bee
look pretty with only mattress, and
with springs it is quite as comfortable
am quite well aware that l have
shocked many of the good readers Of
the Rural by my unorthodox opinions
but am convinced that Patty Gar
ton " will shake hands with me in re
gard to these same opinions.-B. b., u
| Ruro1 Nelr yOrler